Web / installation based information design

Winter 2008

Food Allergies on the Rise is a two part information design project exploring how similar content can be implemented in a web interaction and translated into a physical print and object based installation.
The web-based interaction is an information/data project that uses the screen to communicate data through scale, perspective, motion, collapse, expand, hide and reveal. While those are obvious traits of web interaction, they become paramount in delivering the right message. Using data from a variety of sources, the design had to cut through the controversy and sensational aspects while focusing on the issues to help the viewer understand the possible side-effects to food.
A physical installation was created out of the data gathered from the web-interaction. The change in media allowed to expand the concepts from screen-based to billboard sized design. Playing with the idea that food allergies are medical issues, glass beakers were used to hold actual food. The billboard size poster was an overhead shot of a dinner table with two people looking up, toward the camera. The image was black and white with the physical beakers installed above various food items on the table. There is transition from the photograph to the physical beakers or black and white to color, but the transformation that occurred was showing how a classic dinner setting could be medicalized.